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4
Variations and Theories
of Excellence
4.1 VOYAGE OF CHARLES DARWIN*
It was Erasmus Darwin’s grandson Charles (1809–1882) who worked out a detailed and correct
theory of evolution and supported it by a massive weight of evidence. As a boy, Charles Darwin was
passionately fond of hunting and collecting beetles, but he was a mediocre student. Darwin’s father,
a wealthy physician, sent him to Edinburgh University to study medicine; but nally, he gave up the
idea of making him a doctor and sent him instead to Cambridge to study for the clergy.
Thus, it happened that on December 27, 1831, Charles Darwin sailed from Devonport on HMS
Beagle, a s